The 2022 election was marked by intense polarization between Lula and Bolsonaro, shaping up as a dispute fought in opposite trenches. On one side, Lula's supporters promised to defend democracy; on the other, Bolsonaro's defenders saw his election as a path to morally conservative policies and to the defeat of the "lefts." The other candidates were dragged along by polarization and, in the second round, were forced to choose one side.
Bolsonaro, the president and candidate for re-election, achieved an unprecedented feat in the post-redemocratization period: he failed to renew his mandate by a small margin of votes, in one of the most competitive elections in the country's recent history.
Four years later, the Brazilian electoral landscape presents different configurations. The theory of economic voting does not claim that voters respond directly to economic indicators, but that citizens' electoral behavior is influenced by their perception of the country's economic situation.
The article analyzes how the 2026 election begins to escape more conventional explanations, suggesting that factors beyond the purely economic and traditional left-right polarization may be shaping the Brazilian political landscape in a less predictable way.
